Game Theory
by Ms.ErlenmeyerFlask
Summary: “You have a lot of rules for someone who doesn’t play by them.” Neal plays by rules; it’s just that he makes them up as he goes along.


**Disclaimer: I don't own White Collar.**

**Author's Note: Hi! After watching Home Invasion, I couldn't get this idea out of my head; it may or may not turn into a multi-part story. This is my first ever fanfiction attempt, so feedback is appreciated.  
**

_You have a lot of rules for someone who doesn't play by them._

The first rule is to never let anyone know how much you care about the game. He establishes this one early on, maybe in elementary school. Kids are cruel: you trip on the playground or miss one question in class and they snicker and taunt and _eat you alive_ if they figure out that you care. Neal knows he's smart – smarter than most people, even – but he also knows that he's not infallible. He knows he's going to lose sometimes, whether it's because he screws up or because unforeseeable circumstances align to screw him over or because – worst of all – someone on the other team actually outsmarts him, winning fair and square.

Neal hates losing. It's a sickening sensation, that painful needle of shame and anger and childish disbelief burrowing through the fissures of his nonchalant facade to the pressure point at his core, his pride, until he feels like he's going to explode. But he doesn't. He swallows the tantrum and smiles his most charming smile – a disarming mixture of innocent amusement, graceful acknowledgment of his own loss, and admiration for the person who beat him. _The game?_ this smile seems to ask carelessly. _Oh well, it was fun while it lasted, but what does it really matter?_ And while the winner is busy feeling angry or baffled or impressed by Neal's complete indifference to the game, Neal is already playing the next round. The best way to soothe his injured pride is to steel himself: he may have lost this one, but the game is ongoing.

What has always saved him, more than his looks or his smarts, is his understanding of people. In his experience, there are two major classes of winners: the ones who actually derive their pleasure from your loss, and the ones who just want the self-satisfaction of a job well done. With the first group – the playground bullies – Neal gets a kick out of being nonchalant because it not only deprives them of their sadistic thrill, but also tends to enrage them enough that they slip up and give him his advantage back. It's more complicated with the second class. Neal understands their mentality better, even respects them a little, because isn't he just a variation on the same theme? Not a sadist, but a kid basking in his own brilliance: he's the sort of criminal who sends champagne to surveillance vans just because he can. The trouble is that if he can understand them, then there's the chance that they will understand him too, and Neal can't – won't – bear that. It is bad enough for an opponent to know that Neal has the losing hand; Neal refuses to reveal what he has at stake.

So when Peter Burke, hard-working F.B.I. agent extraordinaire and textbook example of the second group, finally arrests Neal after a three-year chase, Neal just pulls out that winning smile (reserved for losses) and compliments him on a job well done. "Bet Elizabeth will be happy to get you back," he adds amiably as he is led away in handcuffs, as though he is a buddy of Peter's commenting on the end of "that Caffrey case" over a beer. Inside he is reeling from the loss; his agile mind grasps frantically for an escape route, a loophole, something to pick the lock with, anything to avoid this terrifying finality of _caught_-_trapped_-_helpless_. Peter stands there with a furrowed brow (all traces of well-deserved triumph now erased from his face), wondering how the three years it took to catch Neal Caffrey are still not enough to understand what makes the man tick. And when Neal looks back and sees his perplexed opponent, he realizes with relief that while he may have lost his freedom for the time being (a colossal loss, to be sure), he still has his mask, which means he is still in the game.

It is different when Peter arrests him the second time. Neal slips up. "I don't care," he says when the agent tells him his escape attempt is going to cost him four more years in prison. They are the right words, but he says them for the wrong reason, and they reveal too much. This time, it's not a cavalier statement about how little winning or losing the game matters to him; rather, it's the unwise disclosure of just how much he has invested in Kate, to the point that everything else is insignificant when she is at stake. There's no telling how the knowledge could be used against him, and so Neal rallies himself, backtracks. He ribs Peter about his suit, and as Peter becomes disconcerted and defensive, the balance shifts between them. Because on that old, seriously unstylish suit are the fragmented security fibers that are going to help Neal back into the game. He can smile his smile and casually offer up highly classified information and ask for nothing more than a meeting in exchange, puzzling his opponent once again.

Peter doesn't know it yet, but they have just entered the next round.


End file.
